Gritty RE-201

[mrfiama]

Hi,

First post in this forum, it' good to see some tape echo love round here I recently scored a RE-201 in pretty good condition. The unit have remained unused 15 years, and the previous owner recalls a couple of service checks.

The tape runs ok, no speed issues, and it get into oscillation easily, although I did have to clean the heads, tape path and spent some time with the head alignment. I got an old NOS Maxell xli 35 90b to make my own loops from the owner. I did a couple but none sounds good. The tone through the unit is pretty good, but the repeats are way too gritty, no hi frequencies, like the tape was messed.

I opened it and did some adjusting with the internal trimmers, nothing improved. I bought a demagnetizer and a couple of tape loops on ebay, that's the last thing to try. Does this problem sound familiar to you?

Regards.

[Drone]

How bad is bad? I've never met a vintage tape delay that didn't lose clarity in the high end on repeat, that's part of their charm, but is your unit excessive?

[mrfiama]

Hi, thanks for answering.

Here is a recording with my mobile phone (and some background noise)

https://soundcloud.com/trasteos/re-201

The repeats are there but there's lack of definition. The reverb is of but it sounds like it's on. I've heard a lot of examples that sound much more clear than mine.

Does this have something to do with the bias or magnitzed heads?

[Drone]

Doesn't sound that bad to me.

http://messageboard.tapeop.com/viewtopic.php?t=81531

That is the space echo thread, you may want to check it out.

[southsider]

I use a 201 pretty regularly. It doesn't sound like yours is too far out or anything. First thing to try would be ordering a new tape loop online, or making your own out of some new 1/4'' tape. Look up re-201 tape loop on ebay.

I've found that NOS tape just sheds and starts dropping out. I think that maxxell type you mentioned is pretty old too.